Chapter 96

FELIX

“He has allied himself with Abernathy,” I told Albert. His face turned pale.

“Abernathy wants to destroy everything we know and love,” he said. “They are intent on Dragon Knight supremacy.”

“He’s up to something beyond revenge at this point,” I said. “Otherwise that kingdom would have never bothered themselves with him.”

Albert closed his eyes for a moment, as if in prayer. He finally said, “Then we better not let it get to that.”

I reached out for his shoulder. “Thank you for standing by me. It is an honor to fight with you.”

Albert mustered a smile, albeit a wobbly one. “The same to you, Felix.”

I looked down at my army below me. We were all that stood between Charles and his vengeance.

“Onward!” I shouted down my generals. They looked up, understanding my signal, and started to march.

I urged my army forward, creating a wide line that approached the border of Fresonia like a wall. Ignatius and I moved up and down, monitoring the slow, steady march of the enemy.

I moved back down towards Albert, who was studying the skies.

“What do you sense?” I asked. Like me, he knew the telltale signs of an approaching Dragon Knight like the back of his own hand.

He looked at me then, his eyes full of dread. “Dragons approach.”

I looked up at the sky, immediately seeing what he was seeing. The clouds had darkened ever so slightly, as if someone–or several someones–lurked there, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

On the ground, the enemy army was now visible to my men. I could tell they were bristling at the sheer size of what was coming towards them, but to their credit, they kept bravely marching forward.

I saw the flash of scales a split second before Albert did.

A dragon swooped in, aiming for Albert’s seat. He easily swerved, ducking out of the way of the chomping, angry jaws.

“They’re coming from above! Take cover!” he yelled before plunging his dragon towards the earth at a near-deadly speed.

Albert was a seasoned dragonrider and someone who could easily hold his own, but my heart still seized with worry at the sight of him nosediving. I urged Ignatius forward, smoothly sailing over my men and towards the troops ahead.

Charles’ army had breached the border, and men in black armor were pouring in now. I had no idea how so many of them had gotten through–had they used the trading bridge leading into Barlow?

The border was marked by a shallow river, and I swooped Ignatius towards the water. As much as it pained me to do so, I ordered Ignatius to breathe fire over the soldiers wading through the water.

I fought the urge to vomit as we flew away, leaving a trail of ashes behind us.

Below me, the hand-to-hand combat was going strong. My men were fighting valiantly, but I knew deep down how difficult this fight was. Brother against brother, kin against kin. It was, as Esmeralda would say, unnatural.

As Ignatius and I moved closer to the earth, I saw a sight that made my blood run cold.

Albert and his younger brother Anton were locked sword-to-sword, wearing matching looks of deadly determination on their faces. Anton took a swing at Albert, easily pushing him into the nearby treeline.

I felt torn. I wanted to help my friend, but I also knew that Albert would never speak to me again if I scorched his brother in dragonfire. Whatever happened to the two of them, they needed to be the perpetrators.

I knew deep down that there was no way both of them were making it out alive.

I was left with no other choice but to move higher into the clouds, in search of my own brother.

It was time to find Charles and put an end to this.

MILA

Waiting was agony.

Felix had left me with a soldier who was essentially serving as a glorified babysitter. I did not need someone to watch over me, but I also understood that it made Felix feel better about leaving me behind. Still, I felt a bit infantilized. Sure, Charles had successfully kidnapped me once, but I had my wits about me this time.

I was ready.

My guard was also clearly itching to join the fray. We could hear battle cries and shouts that had once seemed so distant moving closer and closer, and I knew it would not be long before the battle was upon us. Which meant two things: one, my guard needed to lend his sword towards the cause, and two, I needed to get the hell out of there.

I waited until it seemed like he was listening especially closely to the battle and slipped out of the back of the tent.

There must be some way I could help–creating smoke signals or some other effort. I inched towards the noise, my nose instantly filling with the acrid smell of smoke. It was clear where the battle was–the ground was aflame about a mile ahead of me, which meant that the dragons had gotten involved.

I paused in my step as I realized what else that meant. Charles’ army had successfully breached the border and pushed its way into Fresonia. This was no longer a foreign possibility. There was war on Fresonia’s soil.

And as its princess, I was putting myself directly in the path of danger.

What was I thinking?

I inched towards the nearby treeline, thinking that maybe I could take cover there until I saw a familiar dragon. I had barely any sort of defense, only having a small hunting knife to arm myself with that Felix had spared from his own supply.

Felix. I wondered where he was, if he was fighting on the ground or in the skies. My stomach twisted as I thought about the possibility of sleeping in a bed alone tonight.

The sounds of battle drew even closer, and I hurried into the trees. I was not particularly athletic, but I had the basic skills and foresight to climb into the low-hanging branches of a nearby tree. I could easily hide myself in the foliage, and had a slightly better vantage point to see the fighting below.

What I saw horrified me: the Fresonian army was being pushed back, further into the kingdom, by Charles’ army. Men were falling to the ground and those who weren’t were covered in blood–whether their own or someone else’s, I was not sure. And I did not want to know.

If Charles’ army was able to advance this far already, it meant that he had many more men than Felix had been expecting. Maybe he even had the backing of another kingdom. I clapped my hand over my mouth to silence a bubbling sob.

There was still no sign of Felix, or Albert, or any of the other princes. There was no sign of anyone I knew, for that matter. Only strange men fighting and dying mere yards from where I was perched.

I shrank further back into the branches and wondered what I could pray to for rescue.

That was when I heard a familiar, chilling sound: the sound of a woman screaming.